Development of the Microwave Radiative Transfer Program for Cloudy Atmospheres: Applications to DMSP SSM/T Channels.
Abstract
A microwave radiative transfer program for cloudy and precipitating atmospheres applicable to the DMSP SSM/T channels has been developed. The microwave transfer program takes into account the simultaneous contributions of multiple scattering and absorption by hydrometeors and absorption due to molecular oxygen and water vapor in the atmosphere. Sensitivity analyses have been carried out to investigate the effects of the rainfall rate, cloud thickness, and cloud location on the upwelling brightness temperature over land and ocean surfaces for two different atmospheric profiles. Over the land surface, it is shown that increasing the cloud liquid water content and cloud thickness significantly reduces the brightness temperatures for SSM/T channels 1 - 3. Over the ocean surface, however, the brightness temperatures for channels 1 - 3 are increased as the cloud liquid water content increases and reach to maximum values depending on the cloud thickness involved. Moreover, we show the importance of the cloud position and the atmospheric temperature profile on the brightness temperature values. In addition, investigation of the effects of precipitation on the temperature retrieval using both the theoretically simulated values and real SSM/T data has also been carried out on the basis of a statistical method. The hypothetical retrieval experiments reveal that the temperatures close to the surface suffer increased degradation as the rainfall rate increases. This finding is further supported by the analysis employing the real SSM/T data for a number of case studies in which temperature profiles from radiosondes are available for comparisons. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 30, 1979
- Accession Number
- ADA087434
Entities
People
- Grant C. Aufderhaar
- Hwa-young Yeh
- Kuo-nan Liou
- Paul T. Nipko
Organizations
- University of Utah